Dissertation Title

What the Dead Witnessed: Clearing Black Knowledges in Jim Crow South Carolina

Biography

Between 1938 and 1942, the South Carolina Public Service Authority sought to displace 901 black families and dig up and flood over 9,000 graves for rural redevelopment. This dissertation challenges government and capitalist conceptions of value by conceptualizing and documenting a “conjure value” among South Carolina’s African-descended people.